Teenager Sam Duggan Ready To Shine For Great Britain

Teenager Sam Duggan, who plays for Swedish club Orebro, is ready to enjoy one of the best ice hockey moments of his young life.

Reading-born Duggan, who played junior hockey for Bracknell before going to Sweden, has been called into Great Britain’s team for the World Championships.

“It’s going to be special,” says Duggan. “It has been a goal of mine since I was little to make this team.

“I have been fortunate enough to have success in Sweden and with GB junior teams and this ranks up there with my best experiences.”

The 6ft 1in Duggan, who can play centre or winger, scored 275 points for Bracknell at under-16 and under-18 levels, while he has also played for Great Britain’s youth team.

Now he is in the GB senior team for their World Championship group matches at the SSE Arena, Belfast. The six-team tournament starts on Sunday and Britain face promoted Netherlands, relegated Japan, Croatia, Estonia and Lithuania.

Head coach Peter Russell, a former director of player development for Cardiff Devils, is preparing his GB team for their first World Championship match against Croatia.

They include Devils forward David Brine and he will come up against Cardiff team-mates Ben Bowns, Thomas Murdy, Mark Richardson and Matthew Myers.

Former Wales prop Rhys Thomas is back in rugby, the battery-charged coach at Newport High School Old Boys. Peter Jackson speaks to a man who has, literally, given his heart to the game and overcome all the odds. Rhys Thomas began the season waiting for a heart transplant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. He finished it, against all the odds, by making probably the bravest and certainly the most improbable of come-backs. At a time when the column inches and social media equivalent keep racking up over Billy Vunipola’s hamstring, Dylan Hartley’s concussion and Manu Tuilagi’s knee, their predicaments seem almost mundane compared to the on-going life-or-death issues endured by the former Wales prop.

Often, it's not the winning that reveals character, but the way someone recovers from setbacks. Rob Cole salutes former world champion Non Stanford - on the comeback trail after the Commonwealth Games. It was the great Aussie rugby coach Alan Jones who coined the immortal phrase to sum up the slings and arrows of often outrageous sporting fortune: “One minute you’re a rooster, the next a feather duster.” How often have we seen the mighty fall from grace to underline the beautiful unpredictability of sport?